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City reputation is a valuable asset for the local economy and firms in the contemporary society. However, the impact of city reputation on micro-level firms has been largely overlooked by the literature. This paper uses the National Civilized City (NCC) policy in China as a quasi-natural experiment to enhance city reputation. We employ the DID approach to investigate the relationship between city reputation and corporate risk-taking. The result shows that corporate risk-taking significantly increases following the NCC policy adoption. Moreover, information asymmetry can strengthen the positive impact of city reputation on corporate risk-taking. Channel tests show that city reputation improves financial condition and decreases default risk, leading to improved risk-taking tolerance. Overall, our paper indicates that city reputation is an important mechanism to improve corporate financial performance, providing empirical evidence for local governments to pursue the NCC title. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of increasing environmental challenges, the transition to a low-carbon economy is an essential step for the manufacturing and industrial sectors. The quality of business processes plays a key role in the transition to a zero-carbon economy. The objective of the paper was, thus, to analyze the break-even point in core and supporting business processes using the proposed linear model based on regression analysis. The aim was to identify the impact of qualitative processes in the pre-production, production, and post-production phases on reaching the break-even point and how these processes affect profits in engineering companies operating in low-carbon sectors. The results suggest that supporting quality processes would generate the highest profit. Investing in improving the quality of core and supporting business processes has a twofold impact, as it improves the bottom line of enterprises through enhancing their reputation as socially responsible businesses. Corporate reputation based on corporate social responsibility in a low-carbon economy represents a valuable intangible asset that helps industrial companies to develop a sustainable and thriving low-carbon business ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the current study is to identify the response of restaurants to COVID-19. Findings were derived from a qualitative approach by conducting thirty-nine interviews at the managerial level of thirty-five independent restaurants in Cairo. During March and April 2020, open-ended interviews were performed, and then analyzed using NVivo 9.0 software. This study successfully documents the decisions and activities related to four aspects (leadership practices, managing stakeholders' cooperation, operational procedures, and marketing the reputation) used in adapting restaurants in response to COVID-19. It also identifies the barriers to applying the mitigation measures. Though this paper concentrates on Cairo restaurants, the value of this paper lies in being the first managerial-level analytical study documenting the responses to COVID-19 in the restaurant industry. It strengthens the existing literature by highlighting COVID-19's impact on the restaurant industry and introducing a holistic view of decisions and the actual pandemic' adopted responses, faced difficulties, and recovery practices within the restaurant industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to clarify the role of social networking sites (SNSs) in building the reputation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). The point of start is that although it is not always infallible, SNSs have a vast potential in the digital environment, however, itis important to cope with the fact that SNSs used in SMEs are marketing-centred, engagement is promoted only with customers and is short term and results centred. The paper opts for a literature review to discuss the concept of engagement, reputation, and propose some SMEs limits to get reputation. Although SNSs have the power to manage corporate reputation, it is not always possible if they don't take into consideration some important issues related to the nature of SMEs and the nature of SNSs. In this sense, SNSs constitute a perfect context to get reputation for SMEs, but only if companies understand two special points: the three sequential dimensions of the concept (the dialogic dimension to start the communication and get interactivity, cognitive dimension for generating good and positive content, not neutral, and emotional dimension to make up a profound link with the organization) and how to manage it in a the proper level with all stakeholders notonly customers through a strategic communication approach (not a punctual action) in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer hospitals enforce different initiatives to accelerate digital transformation, such as mobile health or artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, some health professionals are not willing to adopt these technologies. In order to change some employees' perspectives, these hospitals resort to social media platforms. This paper aims to evaluate how the worlds' best cancer hospitals manage social media platforms, as well as their corporate website, with the aim of disseminating brand-related content and reinforce their reputation. Therefore, we reviewed literature on cancer hospitals' corporate communication strategies, brand, social media platforms and online patient communities. We then resorted to 48 quantitative indicators to analyze how the 200 best cancer hospitals in the world managed Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as their corporate website, for branding purposes. In order to identify the 200 best hospitals, we explored the World's Best Specialized Hospitals 2021, an annual ranking published by Newsweek and Statista. The 48 indicators covered different elements concerning the hospitals' identity and communication activities, as well as patient engagement on social media platforms. Our quantitative analysis proved that most cancer hospitals had a corporate website (70.5%) as well as a profile on Facebook (74%), Twitter (74.5%) and YouTube (67.5%). Nevertheless, most of them did not respect the 48 key performance indicators. Finally, we proposed three main conclusions: a) cancer hospitals should establish a Corporate Communication Department employing different experts in communication, health and big data; b) they should promote an integrated corporate communication approach; and c) they should implement brand ambassador programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on relationship quality (RQ) and customer citizenship behavior (CCB) by considering hotel reputation as a moderator in the hotel industry. The study sample was customers in hotels with the highest number of bookings in selected cities that have been most visited in Iran. PLS-SEM approach was adopted for analyzing data. The results indicate that CSR in hotels improves the relationship quality with customers, and relationship quality has a positive effect on CCB. Moreover, the moderating role of hotel reputation in the relationship between relationship quality and CCB was verified. This study provides tourism practitioners and hotel managers with new insights and key points about establishing a better relationship with customers from CSR perspective and its relationship with CCB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to determine the influence of the family on the reputational transfer between the company and its manager. In the field of family businesses, the strong identification of the family with the company has led to the study of the relationship between corporate reputation and the level of family involvement. However, the mutual transfer of reputation between the family business and its manager has yet to be investigated. For this reason, the study also aims to contrast that the corporate reputation contributes to that of its manager, studying how the presence of a family in the management and/or control of the company affects this relationship. To this end, using the rankings published by the Spanish Corporate Reputation Monitor (MERCO) of the most reputable companies and leaders in Spain for the period 2001-2017, different econometric models have been formulated with panel data. The results obtained, with important practical implications, contribute to reputation research and, especially, to the literature on family businesses. In this sense, the results show not only that the family nature of the company gives a reputational advantage to the company and its leader, but also that the reputation of the family business managers is transferred to the corporate reputation in a shorter period of time than when the company does not share this nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in communication and information technologies have obliged corporations to be aware of the importance of their reputation in the virtual world as well as the real world. Corporations with a robust reputation are more attractive to investors and customers. At the same time, corporations having a robust corporate reputation manages crises more successfully. Reputation management is among the primary functions of public relations practices. One of the essential purposes of public relations practices is to manage the relations between corporations and their audiences, develop and maintain a strong reputation both in the real and virtual worlds. In this paper, the definitions of corporate reputation, online reputation, online reputation management concepts and the importance of these concepts in customer relations, communication and public relations are explained. This study aims to define the components that create, develop and maintain a robust reputation in the virtual world, examin the relationship between these components and explain their functions with concrete examples. Search engine optimization, social media activities and consumer-generated content constitute online reputation managements components. In order to embody the relations between these components, Turkey's two e-commerce websites were examined with the case study method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this research objective was to analyse social reporting within MERCO Business companies both from the point of view of the quantity of information disclosed and the references about their quality. This approach constitutes a novelty with respect to previous literature on the subject. Design/methodology/approach: This paper assesses how social reporting is being carried out by the companies included in the MERCO Corporate Reputation Business Monitor, MERCO Business, during the period 2014–2016. The methodological design include the construction of a weighted index based on two unweighted indexes related to the quantity revealed and the quality detected. In addition, this study integrates intellectual capital and social responsibility approaches in order to deep into these voluntary disclosures. Findings: While social reporting is considerable from a quantitative point of view within MERCO Business companies, they do not reach very high levels of quality, which is good to counteract the final value of the quantity–quality index that the authors' propose. Research limitations/implications: In MERCO Business companies, quantity is not a proxy for quality within social reporting. In this sense, only considering both dimensions it will be possible to assess these disclosures in a more complete way. Practical implications: This study allows a more accurate and comparable view of social reporting than those studies that only focus on how much information is disclosed. Besides, it involves an important advance in the identification of the relative quality of social reporting, opening a new line of research that will be key to comparing this type of disclosures in a more homogeneous way. Likewise, the results can be applied in future studies in the intellectual capital field given the complementarity between both types of disclosures. Social implications: Likewise, these results will be of interest for future actions aimed at regulating the improvement of the quality of social reporting in the hands of managers, investors and regulators. Originality/value: The authors have tested the value of quality in social reporting using a weighted index amongst the most reputable companies in the Spanish scenario. These disclosures have been compared with and without the use of it in order to deduce its value to obtain valid conclusions about social reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge sharing between enterprises is an important way to obtain external research and development (R&D) resources and keep competitiveness. This paper used a reputation model based on a two-period signal game to explore knowledge-sharing micromechanism between enterprises and key influencing factors of enterprises. The results show that reputation effects are an important mechanism that will make knowledge sharing between enterprises operate effectively. Motivated by reputation effects, even those noncooperative enterprises continue to pretend to be cooperative enterprises for knowledge sharing before the end of the game. Finally, we adopt the analytical methods and conclusions given by the model in this article to analyze opportunistic problems in knowledge sharing among cooperative enterprises and put forward some valuable suggestions on the conditions for the effective use of corporate reputation effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this bibliographic review paper is to analyse the impact of social media in the creation of the online reputation of a hospital brand. This paper proposes the PMA model for online reputation management in hospital brands and concludes that the existence of a multidisciplinary team, the brand projection in the long term and the involvement of health professionals are determining factors, which help the Hospital Head of Communication to create a reputed brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies, one qualitative and the other quantitative, have been carried out, each using two samples differentiated by the degree of knowledge of the performance of media: informed population and communication professionals. A quantitative analysis of the reputation of the Spanish media is carried out, based on a qualitative analysis of the professional and business reality of the media with the best reputation. It is concluded that there is a broad consensus that there is no confidence in the media because the information that they disseminate is manipulated. The credibility of a medium shows a high correlation with its history, consistent with the theory of reputation, because consolidation of a stable reputation requires time. The reputation of each type of media (paper press, digital press, radio, and television) is evaluated, yielding two rankings of the 16 media with the best reputation in Spain, corresponding to the two samples analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches corporate reputation from an English law perspective. It argues that corporate reputation is at least as important as individual reputation, as it is not only vital for the health and prosperity of businesses themselves (whether large or small), but also for the communities within which they operate. Following analysis of conflicting jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights, which has led to a lack of clarity within English law, this paper contends that business reputation should be subsumed within the concept of property. Such an approach would then enable businesses to avail themselves of a positive right to the protection of reputation, as property, under Article 1 Protocol 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant research has increasingly recognized that local reputation determines creative firms’ competitiveness. However, current research over-emphasizes that the spatial cluster facilitates the innovation dynamic of creative industries rather than investigating whether the trans-local dynamic of trade fairs and competitions underpins the reputation-building process of local creative industries. This paper contributes to exploring the reputation-building process and spatial strategy of creative industries through a case study of product design firms in Taipei. Drawing on a qualitative methodology, this paper analyses 35 in-depth interviews with product design company executives, concluding that the spatial strategy of product design firms situated in the Taipei city context must acknowledge local strategic advantage and increasingly build a reputation through connections to trans-local design fairs and competitions. Meanwhile, the reputation-building process reflects that product design firms must capture and negotiate symbolic value through a strategic co-presence in local, regional, and global temporary event spaces. Finally, the process and strategies imply that the design industry needs a new form of intervention in latecomer cities to respond to the uneven development of the global design economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Reputation is crucial to enabling human or software agents to select among alternative providers. Although several effective reputation assessment methods exist, they typically distil reputation into a numerical representation, with no accompanying explanation of the rationale behind the assessment. Such explanations would allow users or clients to make a richer assessment of providers, and tailor selection according to their preferences and current context. In this paper, we propose an approach to explain the rationale behind assessments from quantitative reputation models, by generating arguments that are combined to form explanations. Our approach adapts, extends and combines existing approaches for explaining decisions made using multi-attribute decision models in the context of reputation. We present example argument templates, and describe how to select their parameters using explanation algorithms. Our proposal was evaluated by means of a user study, which followed an existing protocol. Our results give evidence that although explanations present a subset of the information of trust scores, they are sufficient to equally evaluate providers recommended based on their trust score. Moreover, when explanation arguments reveal implicit model information, they are less persuasive than scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of board resource diversity on firm reputation. We classify board members as business experts, support specialists, political directors and other community influentials, in an effort to address whether business, technical expertise or political ties in the boardroom affect stakeholders' opinion and, therefore, firm reputation. This study confirms that not all outside directors are equally effective in improving firm reputation, and that certain kinds of outside directors, especially business experts, help increase it. However, the findings note an inverted U-shaped non-linear relationship with these directors, which means that the effect of business experts on reputation is positive up to a point, after which the relationship becomes negative. The findings also evidence that, contrary to popular beliefs, directors with previous experience as politicians are not negatively viewed by stakeholders. Moreover, this type of community influential directors has positive effects on firm reputation in regulated firms as well as in those of the public work sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The corporate marketing perspective is a new paradigm which identifies the management of the business identity, image and reputation as an essential tool for the survival and success of companies. Accordingly, the correct understanding of these three concepts is a basic pre-requisite for the companies interested in managing their businesses in accordance to the latest marketing trends. Nonetheless, the proliferation of diverse approaches to the study of the identity, image and reputation hampers the generation of useful knowledge regarding these issues. In this paper, an integrative perspective is proposed to better understand the concepts and dimensions of the business identity, image and reputation. The theoretical review provided in the paper allows scholars and practitioners to better understand these three faces of the corporate marketing perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper discusses the conceptual and empirical connections between an organization''s reputation management and online communication. The paper develops a theory driven model of the structural dimensions of reputation and analyzes organizational communication professionals’ views on the potential that online communication has for reputation management. The survey data showed that online communication was perceived to have positive impacts on the structure and advantages of reputation, and that these two aspects would seem to be strongly dependent on each other. Thus, online communication can be used to influence the assessments made by stakeholders about an organization''s products and services, corporate responsibility, success, its ability to change and develop, and its public image. In addition, online communication can generate reputational advantages by strengthening stakeholder relationships and building social capital for the organization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Branding in higher education has become increasingly used as a mechanism of differentiation among competitors to attract prospective students. Although branding in higher education is a common phenomenon, little work has been done assessing the college selection process using a brand choice framework. This paper aims to fill the gap by investigating the college selection process using the consumer decision framework specifically addressing the notion of the consideration set. The study employs qualitative research methods and included interviews of incoming first-year students. The findings reveal that the university brands in the consideration set for a student range from one to eight and need not be of the same type of institution. Also, the findings highlight other brand-related constructs that help to move the university from consideration set to ultimately the college of choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The necessity of taking into account the ethical aspects when taking investment decisions in the company that is caused by an increasingly traceable trend of interest of external and internal enterprise environments in the ecological, social and ethical business responsibility is substantiated in the paper. Existing approaches to evaluating the corporate image are analyzed. The conclusion that currently there is no consensus on the corporate image assessment is drawn. It is revealed that in Ukraine and Russia scientists do not differentiate the concepts of «corporate image» and «corporate reputation». It is proposed to estimate the corporate image by identifying the attitude of particular representatives of certain target groups to the enterprise. The evaluation model of the probable impact of real investment project implementation on the corporate image -- reputation component is developed. The value of the reputation component of specific real investment project is a convex linear combination of relevant (in the opinion of the decision maker) changes in the corporate reputation (in the opinion of the target groups) in the case of implementing this project. To find the values of weight coefficients, being integral parts of the developed model, we find possible to use the hierarchy analysis method. In the case when true values of the experts' competence levels are unknown, the values of weight coefficients can be estimated using the matrix model for assessing the values of these coefficients, i.e. using the model for estimating the values of weight coefficients, based on the solution of the corresponding matrix game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial societies-distributed systems of autonomous agents-are becoming increasingly important in open distributed environments, especially in e-commerce. Agents require trust and reputation concepts to identify communities of agents with which to interact reliably. We have noted in real environments that adversaries tend to focus on exploitation of the trust and reputation model. These vulnerabilities reinforce the need for new evaluation criteria for trust and reputation models called exploitation resistance which reflects the ability of a trust model to be unaffected by agents who try to manipulate the trust model. To examine whether a given trust and reputation model is exploitation-resistant, the researchers require a flexible, easy-to-use, and general framework. This framework should provide the facility to specify heterogeneous agents with different trust models and behaviors. This paper introduces a Distributed Analysis of Reputation and Trust (DART) framework. The environment of DART is decentralized and game-theoretic. Not only is the proposed environment model compatible with the characteristics of open distributed systems, but it also allows agents to have different types of interactions in this environment model. Besides direct, witness, and introduction interactions, agents in our environment model can have a type of interaction called a reporting interaction, which represents a decentralized reporting mechanism in distributed environments. The proposed environment model provides various metrics at both micro and macro levels for analyzing the implemented trust and reputation models. Using DART, researchers have empirically demonstrated the vulnerability of well-known trust models against both individual and group attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate reputation is a key intangible asset for organizations, especially in intensive-staff services, because it allows creating and sustaining competitive advantages. As managers are essential in the creation and communication of reputation, the aim of this paper is to establish a model about reputation perceived by them. Thus, Human Resources, Ethics and Costumer Loyalty, Media Reputation, Good Functioning, Respect and Credibility, and Environmental Responsibility are identified as specific dimensions that affect to the reputation perceived by managers of service companies, such as accounting audit firms that operate in Spain. This will facilitate the strategic management of reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the literature for articles that include both the terms corporate social responsibility and reputation in the title and/or abstract. The results of the conceptual analysis reveal that most studies on CSR and reputation focus on practical implications without contributing to the theoretical framework. The authors propose applying institutional theory to enhance the understanding of the relationship between CSR and reputation and to foster public relations theory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper revisits the hypothesis that nonprofit organizations emerge in markets that are characterized by contractual incompleteness because they ensure consumers against opportunistic behavior. We extend the Glaeser and Shleifer [Glaeser, E., Shleifer, A., 2001. Not-for-profit entrepreneurs. Journal of Public Economics 81, 99–115] framework, which studies an entrepreneur’s optimal choice of organizational form and service quality when quality is non-contractible into a repeated interaction setting. The main result is that when reputations can be sustained, then for-profit status is the preferred organizational form and high quality services are ensured. This finding suggests that existing explanations of nonprofit organizations that focus entirely on contractual imperfections in the producer/consumer relationship may be inadequate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the impact of downsizing on a firm's reputation for corporate social performance (RCSP). Drawing on the downsizing, corporate reputation and social responsibility literatures, a number of hypotheses concerning the impact of downsizing, and particularly the types of downsizing, on a firm's reputation for corporate social performance are developed and empirically tested. The main findings of this study are that, while downsizing seems to have a negative impact on the firm's RCSP, when one takes into account the kind of managerial action that led to downsizing (layoffs and/or divestitures), this impact differs between the two stakeholder groups, industry executives and financial analysts, which were investigated. This study also found that a high financial performance prior to downsizing led to a greater negative impact on the firm's RCSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the concept of reputation (good reputation) of legal persons in respect to the legislation within civil law and media law. Interpretation of the legislation is complemented by a comprehensive analysis of the judicial case-law in this area. Attention is focused on the criteria applied for the purpose of detecting unauthorized interference to the reputation of a legal person. In particular, on distinguishing between allegations of factual statement nature and value judgements or permissible criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether a relation exists between stock market valuation and the extent to which Italian listed companies disclose information on their digitalization initiatives. The authors posit that the disclosure of digitalization-related information is a form of intellectual capital disclosure, which provides potentially value-relevant information to investors. Additionally, it is assumed that the reputation for corporate sustainability affects the relation between digitalization disclosure and stock market valuation. To test the aforementioned hypotheses, the authors first quantified the extent of digitalization disclosure by content-analysing the annual reports of 75 Italian listed companies for the years 2011–2017, and then they examined the value relevance of digitalization-related information accounting for the role of corporate sustainability. Empirical results suggest 1) that stock market participants incorporate digitalization-related information into their business valuation process, and 2) that firms with better reputation for corporate sustainability achieve higher valuations from disclosing their digitalization efforts. The potential contribution of this study is manifold: first, it extends prior research on the value relevance of IC disclosure by broadening its scope to include digitalization-related disclosure and evidencing the (moderating) role of corporate sustainability in firm valuation; second, it provides some empirical substance to the discussion on how to measure the value a company extracts from digitalization efforts; and third, it may support the case for increased non-financial disclosure as called for by accounting regulators and standard setters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]